A few nice facts about animals images I found:
Painting of St. Abbo, Church of Bet Mercurios, Lalibela, Ethiopia
Image by A.Davey
If I need proof that looking isn't the same as seeing, all I need to do is think back on my visit to the Church of Bet Mercurios in Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Now that I've looked at the photos from that visit, I realize the church houses three paintings of St. Abbo.
Until then, I hadn't the foggiest recollection of what I'd seen in Bet Mercurios, much less that I'd come across three very different interpretations of a distinctive story from Ethiopian religious history.
During such visits, would I be better off living in the moment and really seeing my surroundings instead of photographing them?
I think the answer is no. My memory is not photographic. Given how quickly visitors pass through these important sites, it would be astonishing if I could remember I'd seen three paintings illustrating the same story, much less remember the details.
With photographs, I'm effectively augmenting my memory, all the better for me and for anyone who views my photos of Ethiopia.
Now that we have that out of the way, a refresher is in order. According to flickerite PJBayens, who identified this saint for me in a painting several churches ago:
"Saint Gebre Menfes Kidus, more popularly known as Saint Abbo . . . founded the monastery on Mount Zuqwala (various spellings)."
"Like the Western St. Francis, he's portrayed with animals--and clothed in his own body hair. He's featured in one of the stained glass windows in the church of Tekle Haymanot in Debre Libanos."
This painting of St. Abbo is remarkable for the detail with which his clothing is rendered. Other paintings hint at this configuration and pattern, but this is the only painting in which the details of the clothing are fully realized. If you're wondering what that fabulous fabric is, go back a paragraph and re-read the description of St. Abbo.
Ok, so what about St. Abbo's posse of big cats?
Here, they're more realistic than their counterparts in other paintings, which is to say they're not goofy-looking cartoon characters.
In fact, this collection of lions and leopards is all business, staring intently at the viewer. With these beasts, I'd probably want to ask St. Abbo for permission to approach instead of sauntering up to the nearest lion and scratching it under the chin.
If you'd like to see all the paintings of St. Abbo I photographed in Ethiopia, please follow this link:
www.flickr.com/search/?q=abbo&w=40595948@N00
Church of Bet Mercurios, Lalibela, Ethiopia.
Kampa Dzong, Tibet [1904] John C. White [RESTORED]
Image by ralphrepo
Entitled: Kampa Dzong, Tibet [1904] John C. White [RESTORED] The image was nearly perfect to begin with. I smoothed out the clouds, got rid of some minor spot and scratch problems, evened the tones and added a bit more contrast. (I had previously wrongly attributed this image to John Baptist Noel, one of White's contemporaries in the region and another historical photography figure in his own right; my humble apologies to all viewers for the glaring error.)
"British amateur photographer, who served in the Indian Public Works Department from 1876 and as political agent for Sikkim, Bhutan, and Tibetan affairs 1905–8. White accompanied the Younghusband Mission to Tibet in 1903–4 and during the campaign made a series of mainly landscape photographs, including a number of impressive panoramas. A selection of these was later issued in two photogravure volumes by the Calcutta photographers Johnston & Hoffmann as Tibet and Lhasa (1906). Owing to political sensitivities regarding the accompanying text, they were subsequently withdrawn, and are now extremely rare. A memoir, Sikhim and Bhutan: Experiences of Twenty Years on the North‐Eastern Frontier of India, appeared in 1909, and many of White's photographs accompany the articles on Sikkim and Bhutan which he later wrote for the National Geographic Magazine."
Quoted from: John Claude White Biography - (1853–1918), Tibet and Lhasa arts.jrank.org/pages/11649/John-Claude-White.html#ixzz0rW...
Kampa Dzong (trad. Khamber Jong; also Khampa Dzong), also referred to as the Tibetan hamlet of Gamba, sits just north of the point where Nepal, India (Sikkim) and Bhutan currently abuts the Chinese border.
Tibet sat on the crossroads of history in the early 1900's, with a British force seeking to secure the northern border of its subcontinent possessions against incursion. Britain was alarmed that China was reportedly allowing unopposed Russian access to Tibet, thus putting another colonial power immediately north of India. As a prelude to that conflict, the British regional authorities attempted to negotiate with both Tibet and China and seek agreements with both governments. The meeting place was supposed to be at Kampa Dzong, see below:
"The causes of the war are obscure, and it seems to have been primarily provoked by rumours circulating amongst the Calcutta-based British administration (Delhi was made imperial capital of India in 1911) that the Chinese government, (who nominally controlled Tibet), were planning to turn it over to the Russians, thus providing Russia with a direct route to British India and breaking the chain of semi-independent, mountainous buffer-states which separated India from the Russian Empire to the north. These rumours were seemingly supported by the facts of Russian exploration of Tibet. Russian explorer Gombojab Tsybikov was the first photographer of Lhasa, residing in it in 1900—1901 with the aid of the thirteenth Dalai Lama's Russian courtier Agvan Dorjiyev.
In view of the rumors, the Viceroy, Lord Curzon in 1903 sent a request to the governments of China and Tibet for negotiations to be held at Khampa Dzong (Khamber Jong), a tiny Tibetan village north of Sikkim to establish trade agreements. The Chinese were willing, and ordered the thirteenth Dalai Lama to attend. However, the Dalai Lama refused, and also refused to provide transportation to enable the amban (the Chinese official based in Lhasa), You Tai, to attend. Curzon concluded that China had no power or authority to compel the Tibetan government, and gained approval from London to send a military expedition, led by Colonel Francis Younghusband, to Khampa Dzong. When no Tibetan or Chinese officials met them there, Younghusband advanced, with some 1,150 soldiers, 10,000 porters and laborers, and thousands of pack animals, to Tuna, fifty miles beyond the border. After waiting more months there, hoping in vain to be met by negotiators, the expedition received orders (in 1904) to continue toward Lhasa.
Tibet's government, guided by the Dalai Lama was understandably unhappy about the presence of a large acquisitive foreign power dispatching a military mission to its capital, and began marshalling its armed forces. The government was fully aware that no help could be expected from the Chinese government, and so intended to use their arduous terrain and mountain-trained army to block the British path. The British authorities had also thought of the trials mountain fighting would pose, and so dispatched a force heavy with Gurkha and Pathan troops, who came from mountainous regions of British India. The entire British force numbered just over 3,000 fighting men and was accompanied by 7,000 sherpas, porters and camp followers. Permission for the operation was received from London, but it is not clear that the Balfour government was fully aware of the scale of the operation, or of the Tibetan intention to resist it."
Source: www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/British_expedition_to_Tibet
Who was tracking who?
Image by Viewminder
I followed their signs and tracks for three days and nights hoping to photograph the apex predator that is the wolf.
The constant rain though perilous to my comfort, creating slippery trails and damaging my feet... it provided me with 'time' information on the whereabouts of the pack.
In that rain on that day I think it would have been probable that the pawprint I photographed in the mud was less than twenty minutes old... I was backtracking on a trail from the end of a peninsula that I had just walked down less than an hour ago... my bootprints had been erased by the rain... the wolf's prints were still crisp and readable.
They were following me... I had no doubt... a couple of silver flashes in the woods so quick... an arching jump over a log leaving me only to wonder if I really saw what I thought I saw. There'd never be enough time to press the shutter release much less grab the camera from my side and point it at them.
These were their woods.
Each night in order to try to dry my clothes I would get down to one layer and do a quick walk around the perimeter of the site I chose to camp... I'd look for signs of the wolves... vantage points they might watch me from. The next morning I'd do the same thing to wake up and often I would see new signs that the wolves had been there in the night. Sometimes they were close. Really close.
Those signs would tell me what the wolves had been eating... how long it was since their kill... but mostly it told me that they had this ability to move around me quite closely without ever giving their presence away. I knew that the wolf was the master predator of these woods and that if he chose to take me down I would probably have no chance. I would probably never see the thing coming.
There'd only be a wooshing sound to break the silence followed by the ever quickening beats of the paw pads ripping through the undergrowth...a dead silience as the hunter leapt into the air with a lethally choreographed attack that was carefully premeditated and certain to make it's mark.
I'd been attacked by a pack of wild dogs before... when I rode my bicycle from Chicago to Carbondale... I've seen them focus on my achilles tendon... that's how they like to bring you down... their focus can be incredible, admirable even... I learned pretty quickly that the way to survive a dog attack at least was to interrupt it... watch and wait for the attack to be launched... sometimes it's all just a feint... you can tell when it's going to transition from pursuit to attack... and when it does you gotta move into it. It's counterintuitive I know but it's effective. One step into it usually does it... the canine mind has the whole thing figured out beforehand... down to the very last step... if you let the motion flow the way the animal envisions it, he's gonna get you. But if you break the flow... the canine brain's got to start all over again... reset the whole cycle. That's dogs for you... somehow I don't think a wolf would fall for that tactic. I don't think you'd see the wolf's transition into the attack. Where the dog yaps and barks and makes displays territorial, the wolf is deliberate and considerate, patient and aware.
They weren't thinking that way though or I wouldn't be telling this story. They were following me for entertainment... it was a game to them I think... seeing how close they could get without me seeing them.
They have other prey that they're used to... prey that they understand. After a few days of humiliating failure following them by yourself in the forest though and your mind recognizes them for the superior predator that they are.
The wolves on Isle Royale have never eaten anyone although in the last few years they have been losing their fear of humans somewhat and invading campsites on occaision.
That morning I woke up at McCargoe Cove and threw my backpack over my shoulders... before I took my first step I heard what sounded like the siren on a police car... it was a lone wolf... immediately joined in chorus by several others and their distinct howling... I had not heard them before and I was surprised at the primitive fear the sound elicited within me.
The thin hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and the chemical flow of instinct surged and threatened to take over the control of my muscles. The flight response had been primed the moment I heard that wailing in the forest.
They were communicating between themselves... the sound was curious... if it were human I would say that the group was lamenting something... that there was a sadness within them. I had heard a sound like this once... when my grandfather realized that my grandmother had died. Others have since told me that they had probably made a kill then.
It had crossed my mind too and I knew that the sounds came from between me and the main trail... my only way out of the area I was in.
I pondered for a moment the implications of coming across a number of wolves and their kill. It wasn't a good thought... in fact I considered staying put for a little while knowing that they would take some time to move their prize to a more discreet location if it should have been on the trail.
Dismissing that idea I began the half of a mile walk down that trail through the thick undergrowth stopping every so often only to listen for the sounds that would give away their activity or position.
As usual, they gave away nothing.
I saw or heard nothing more than their fresh footprints in the mud, dissapointed and relieved at the same time.
Someone asked me if I was dissapointed that I didn't see the wolves and I thought about it deeply before I offered this thought... my inability to observe these animals and their taunting proximity to me only created even more respect for them and their mystique... they did not give up the prize easily and yet I am certain that they were very often observing me... in my failure to return with a sighting or a photograph of these animals my curiousity and intrigue and even respect is grown to a new level.
I am no match for their ability to move silently through the dense undergrowth of the north woods on Isle Royale... I did realize there that the way to observe these creatures because of their inate curiousity and propensity for movement would have been to find a vantage point from which I could command the viewing area... to cover myself with mosquito netting and with a water bottle by my side sit there for hours.
Even if they saw me take the position there I figure either they'd become curious as to how I 'dissapeared' under the netting or that they would consider me gone and give away their presence with that conclusion.
Unfortunately the cold and the rain and the conditions on Isle Royale didn't allow me that option. Next time I will use my new understanding of this animal to 'outwolf' him.
They were smarter than I gave them credit for being. They were the better predator.
They earned my respect.
